How To Buy An Established Vending Route and Used Vending Machines
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
I’ve been running my own vending route since November of 2007. Since I didn’t know anyone in the business, I basically did a little bit of online research and just jumped in. Honestly I have no regrets, learning by doing is the best way to get a quick education and draw your own conclusions about the business. A lot of people want to think things over to the point that it keeps them from taking action, honestly with vending, this is really not necessary. Vending is a very simple business, as long as you avoid scams like biz ops and unreliable thieving locators than you really can’t go too far wrong. Having said that, I’m hoping that the few things I’ve learned may save future venders a little bit of money and trouble.
Lucky for me, I knew about biz op scams, but unfortunately, not everyone does and they can end up paying a heavy price, sometimes as much as $15,000 to $20,000. When you invest this much into a business expecting to reap huge rewards only to find out that you’re going to earn $200 – $300 a month, this is a tough pill to swallow. Most people end up feeling that perhaps all of vending is a scam, so they end up quitting and give up their dream of small business ownership. Well, vending isn’t a scam, but biz ops most certainly are.
Here are a couple more tips that you should be aware of:
Buying an established route is tricky business and particularly tough on new people, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, because it can be a great way to get a good jump on your business. Obviously the key is to not pay too much, but how do you value and established route. New people want to over value the location and this is always as mistake. When buying a route, you only want to pay for the machines, you don’t take into consideration the potential value of the location. This means that you should only pay about $125 or less per machine. This is one of the mistakes I made when first starting out, I bought a small route and ended up paying a few hundred more than I should have. Fortunately for me, this mistake only ended up costing me about $800, but this is a mistake you only want to make once. Great deals and desperate sellers are out, so bide your time and invest your money wisely.
Only buy routes or used vending machines in larger group with machines from the same maker. Eventually these machines will break down and the reason for this will become readily apparent – interchangeable parts. In most instances buying replacement parts isn’t worth the money, so it’s better to have machines that you can cannibalize to keep your route up and running. And in case you were wondering, yes I learned this lesson the hard way as well.
